Soliloquy: From a Working Woman to a Plain Housewife for Two Months

Me when not working, feeling cozy.  

This my soliloquy.  This is my blog.  #Respect

I have a love-hate relationship with work.  I love it more than I hate it.  My mindset is - work is a sanctifying grace.  It has always been like that since the day I joined the workforce six months before I graduated from college. I don't think it's going to change. 

Work taught me a lot of valuable things, including a great deal of patience, and respect for individual differences.  I'm still learning new things along the way.  I sometimes hate work, when it imposes its tendency to take away precious time from people and things I love.  I can always decide to keep it at bay, but what if sometimes, I care too much?  You know that hard wired 'malasakit' in Tagalog.  

Every time the doctors and genuinely concerned people would tell me to slow down, I find it really hard.  For a time, I couldn't differentiate 'busy' from 'very busy'.  

I have been on leave from work for almost a month now.  It's time to hit the brakes, and be on a much needed downtime to do some reassessment.  

I may have lost a child in my womb, but after days of retreat and grieving, I realized the baby is now part of who I am, part of my marriage with my greatest love. We never had the chance to hold the baby in our arms, but he/she will always be in our hearts, and will continue to inspire us to become a better couple, better parents (in God's time), better family.    

I received kind thoughts, not only from family and closest friends but also from people I did not expect to care.  I do not have high or low expectations of people.  I just learned not to expect anything from anyone, but I can only hope for people's genuine kindness.  My learning about the value of family and old-time friendship resurfaced.  With them, I can be myself and not be judged.  I can eat lunch while sobbing uncontrollably, in public, and they would not turn their back at me in shame, because they knew of depression. I should love them more.  For the quality time, yes, I am ultimately working on it.  I forgive myself for any misgivings, and I pray that I may also be forgiven.  

For how many times do I need to remind myself, I cannot please everybody. At some point, my heart would be badly broken by people I cared for, or at least respected.  Over the years, I learned about the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.  I tend not to delve into negativity.  Tempted to take a few steps, but no, I do not want dark thoughts, a jaded heart.  I openly let go of toxic things, and toxic people.  My way of saving myself from being dragged down to a darker alley of deceit or untruthfulness, or playing host to a person's parasitic ambitions. I simply do not want to rub off the negative to the positive-minded people in my life.  Sorry, but not sorry.

I'm starting to feel lighter now, figuratively.  It helps to be kind to oneself, so we can also extend the same kindness to the people around us. 

Oh, and universe, please shower me with more healthy baby dust!  :)  

Running, Infertility, and #TheCubsProject

I love running.  I ran. I stopped. I run again...these things I usually say and do.  I always go back to running no matter how crazy life could get.

I met the love of my life, at the time my age can no longer be found in the calendar.  We met through the local running community.  We sealed our love and life long commitment by marriage. The natural progression, of course, is to bear a healthy baby.  After two years, it is not yet happening. However, we are blessed in more ways than one, and I could not complain to God.  

The logical way to approach our infertility situation is to try different means - whether through natural means or  science.  We cannot expect a different result at the end of each cycle, if we would insist on the same approach over and over again. #TheCubsProject

After months of tracking the calendar, labeled and off-labeled medication, tummy injectibles, ovulation and pregnancy test kits to the trash bin, medical tests, and two failed artificial insemination cycles, still no baby.  

It was never as easy as Band Aid...a needle can puncture a heart.

I developed polyps, instead.  Those benign little monsters occupied my uterus quite aggressively, that they prevented embryos from implanting into my womb.  I used to imagine those polyps as tiny, alien-like creatures that I can smash with a frying pan.  "Die polyps! Die!"  Well, this violent thought did not exactly materialize.  Modern medicine helped me get rid of them.  Like preparing for the next championship game, my OB showed me the actual video of the polyps as we discussed the treatment, post-mortem.  We were getting ready for some action plans once healing is completed.

I won't describe the medication as pretty, as I do not have a good gauge how my hormones affected my emotions (brain chemicals).  While on medication, I had some emotional bouts of how life could become, particularly, my career.  I was once a prey to anxiety, paranoia - more of that 'fear of missing out', of being passed up for important work assignments because of my drive to challenge infertility.  Then, what used to help me deal by becoming open about the treatments made a 180-degree turn.  I crawled back to my shell, with some good memories of my past, but now non-existent comfort zone. My heart was broken. 

I prayed. I could not be more grateful for the abundance of love and support by my husband, our family, and friends.    

As soon as I got a go-signal from my OB to resume strenous physical activities, I enrolled in a gym.  Time to pick-up the pieces.  So, I went back to my regular walk-jog-run activities.  

It feels good to be running again.  

The thing about running is the motion of moving forward, moving ahead, and taking charge where to go.  Life is like that.  One has to keep moving forward.  Running creates a semblance, perhaps, at some point, symbolizes my strong will to carry on and rise above whatever challenges life or people throw at me.

Since I was not doing any regular runs for two years, I anticipated a few challenges. Crazy schedule and some degree of physical pain - those lactic acid build up in the legs...and yet, every time I overcome these things, it brings about the feeling of achieving small wins.  Even with small, incremental progress, I already feel like winning.  It's good.  I'm happy...oh, and the hashtags... #FeelingBlessed #HUMAN

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Related blog post :  The Fertility Blessing